Japan’s healthy life expectancy gets longer

Japan’s healthy life expectancy — the span of time in which people can pursue their daily lives without health problems — was 72.68 years for men and 75.38 years for women in 2019, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has announced.

These figures represent an increase of 0.54 years for men and 0.59 years for women from the last survey in 2016.

Healthy life expectations are based on the Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions conducted by the ministry every three years. The difference between the healthy and the average life expectancy was 8.73 years for men, and 12.06 years for women in 2019, both down from the previous survey.

People may need help such as nursing care during this period.

The longest healthy life expectancy by prefecture was 73.72 years for men in Oita and 77.58 years for women in Mie.

“We want to work on reducing the gaps among prefectures, learning from the efforts of localities with the longest healthy life expectations,” a ministry official said.